Person of Interest: To Be Cancelled Next Year?

by Trevor Kimball, May 12, 2015

Though the ratings have fallen quite a bit, CBS renewed Person of Interest for a fifth season. Now we’ve learned that the TV show may be ending.

On Person of Interest, a presumed dead former-CIA agent (Jim Caviezel) and a mysterious billionaire (Michael Emerson) work together to prevent violent crimes in New York City. The rest of the cast includes Kevin Chapman, Sarah Shahi, and Amy Acker.

Deadline reports that, of the CBS shows that have been renewed, POI was the only one to not receive a full season order. At this point, season five will only have 13 episodes.

This is just what happened with The Mentalist a year ago — a series that was also produced by outside studio Warner Bros TV. It was rumored to be that show’s final season many months before the network would confirm it. With this short season renewal, it’s looking like history may repeat itself with POI.

If CBS does indeed cancel POI, the studio could potentially try to find another home for it. While the network doesn’t have a financial stake in the series, the studio does. By the end of next season, there will be 103 episodes — enough for a decent-sized syndication package.

It’s worth noting that the studio already has an off-network deal with WGN America for the series. That cable channel has been producing their own dramas Salem and Manhattan. The ratings have been very tiny for those shows but perhaps WGN could be an option to keep Person of Interest going.

What do you think? Should season five be the end for Person of Interest? Would you watch a sixth season on another channel?

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Killing off Carter was the death knell for POI, as she was the soul and conscience of the show. Replacing her with the sociopath Root and bringing in such tediously boring villains as Greer/Decima/Samaritan and Control put the nails in the coffin. The drop in ratings after season 2 confirms that I’m not the only person who sees things this way. Thirteen episodes should be enough to wrap things up and bring this once-great show to a merciful end.

CBS is losing their status of the number one network just as NBC did some 10-15 years ago. And they’re following the same formula, cancel shows that are solid performers in favor of flash in the pan hits. Though this might seem like a good idea in the short term, in the long term it becomes very frustrating to the viewer. How may reruns of The Big Bang Theory do you need to plug all the resulting holes in the schedule?

I’m sure there’s a network out there which would be perfectly happy with the few million people they’d get with POI after they lose the viewers who couldn’t be bothered to change the channel after NCIS. I’m also reasonably certain the only current lead they’d be able to afford is Amy Acker, so that few million will be blissfully happy, and everyone else will be safe from Amy Acker. Win/win.

This is a kickass show and has a great story line. They have to ntroduce a ew new interesting characters and find Shaw but it deserves a longer run. Come on please stop cancelling good shows and looking for the end of them.